


Draw Me Like You Do

by escritoireazul



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Art Retreat, F/F, Post-Canon, Second Chance Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 15:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21836497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: Claudia Kishi does not expect to run into Ashley Wyeth at a yuppie artist retreat deep in the heart of the Ozarks, but Ashley's always known how to surprise her.
Relationships: Claudia Kishi/Ashley Wyeth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Draw Me Like You Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piscaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/gifts).

> Many thanks to my beta.

“Claudia?”

I don't recognize the voice, low and scratchy, but when I turn around, still drawing my silk kimono-style robe up over my shoulders, I absolutely know the woman. She's taller than me now, and her long hair more light brown than dirty blonde, but her eyes are still the same bright blue and they focus on me, serious and heavy, in the same way.

She's one of the last people I expect to see at this retreat deep in the Ozarks, but it can't be anyone but her: Ashley Wyeth.

My skin prickles as she watches me, and I remember that I'm still mostly naked. I hold the robe closed in front of me and pull the sash tight. There's a small room nearby that all the nude models use to change in, and my clothes are in there. Normally, I don't mind being the only naked person in a room full of people wearing clothes because they aren't people looking at Claudia the person, they're artists looking at a model’s body.

It's different with Ashley, somehow. Everything has always been different with Ashley.

“Hi, Ashley.”

“I thought it was you,” she says. The corners of her mouth turn up just a tiny bit. If I wasn’t watching her so closely, I wouldn’t notice, but I am and I do. “I recognized your bone structure and the way you hold your hands.” She makes a small gesture, demonstrating the idea of it more than an actual pose.

As simple as this is, it's too much. She has long, slender fingers, strong hands from working clay, or she did once. Clever fingers, and she knew exactly how to use them, how to make art from nothing, how to make my body sing. I can't imagine she's forgotten how to do any of those things.

I haven’t let myself think about her in years. I'm not prepared for this.

“Yeah, it’s me.” It sounds stupid the moment I say it. I’m surprised I manage any words at all. “It’s good to see you,” liar, “but I need to go.” I gesture down the length of my body. Ashley looks me over, head to toe, and the slow, obvious way she does it makes me shake.

Pride be damned, I flee straight to the changing room, and I don’t look back.

I’m Claudia Kishi, I’m twenty-three years old, and I’m one of the youngest adults at this retreat. It’s mostly for rich middle age people who think themselves artists and their preteen kids. I originally applied to be an art teacher for the kids, which pays good money and will keep me in rent for months. Nude modeling pays even better, and I’ll be set for art supplies for an entire year.

In the mornings, I teach drawing and watercolors to the kids. In the afternoons, I pose for adult drawing classes. The rest of the time is my own, and I have access to all the studios and any supplies I need.

And yet, somehow, Ashley Wyeth is here, too. She’s not an instructor, and she’s not one of the rich middle age people or their kids. I don’t know how she’s here. I don’t know why.

All I know is that I’m not ready to see her again.

I met Ashley when we were thirteen years old. For a few weeks after we met, she was everything to me. I abandoned everything and everyone else I loved, everything but art, because I was so swept up in her attention. She was an incredibly talented artist, and she thought I was good, too.

Before too long, I realized I wasn’t the kind of person who could give up everything for my art. I didn’t want to. Ashley and I drifted apart because that was exactly what she wanted, art before all else. I missed her, but I had a happy life filled with friends and art and a mostly decent relationship with my family. Ashley and I would talk a little during art classes, nod to each other in the halls, but that was it.

Senior year of high school, we took an art class together at the local college. We spent a few months with our hands in clay in the studio and on each other at home. Class ended, and we stopped hooking up. Graduation, and we stopped talking at all.

Last I heard, she had moved out to San Francisco that summer. I hadn’t heard a single word about her since.

And yet, so many years later, here she is.

I dress quickly even as my thoughts linger over her. I'm wearing baggy, high-waisted green cotton pants, an orange and pink canvas belt that I hand-painted with candied fruit lollipops, a white unitard with green, pink, and orange sequins sewn in twisting lines up the arms and around the waist. My hair is down, only two thin braids at the side pulled back to keep it out of my face, silver and gold ribbon threaded through them. I wear a dangling palm tree earring on one side, and two large oranges in the other; I have two holes in one ear and one in the other. All of the earrings are handmade in acrylic.

I have to keep my make-up simple for modeling, so all I wear is black mascara and thick black eyeliner. I add bright red lipstick now that I'm done for the day, and head outside. Maybe I’ll be able to leave all my thoughts of Ashley behind.

That's a lost cause. The staff has our own dining room, so at least I'm safe there, but there's always the chance I'll run into her in the halls or the studios.

I eat quickly, not taking much notice of how good the food is. My first meal here, I was shocked, and normally I appreciate it when I eat even now, but the garlic bread reminds me of a Christmas party one of my art teachers hosted junior year, and how I spilled spaghetti sauce on the hem of my oversized white button down shirt, and how Ashley tasted like garlic and red sauce when we kissed after, in the middle of the sidewalk, not caring who might see.

I befriended the cooks my first night here, and it works to my benefit. They always have a little extra dessert for me, and tonight is chocolate lava cakes. They pack a few up for me and I hurry back to my room. I don't want to admit I'm hiding, but -- I'm hiding.

I eat warm chocolate in bed, lick it from my fingers after, and dream of chasing squat clay fire hydrants when I finally sleep.

I don’t see Ashley again for a couple days. Not that I'm looking for her. Not exactly. I don't expect to see her in the classes I teach, but as I make my modeling rounds, I hold my breath every time I enter a room, expecting to see her. I never do. I don't know where she's got off to, or if she's avoiding me, and if she is, why.

She came and found me. If she didn't want to see me, she didn't have to say anything at all. I never would have known.

I do know, now, and the longer I go without seeing her, the grumpier I become. I try to be patient with the kids, but I know I'm harsher than I should be, and I snap when one of the seven-year-old students spills an entire container of rainbow glitter all over the floor.

She cries. I distract her and the rest of the kids with a stash of M&Ms in my supply box. While they munch on the candy, I breathe slow and deep and get myself under control.

I like this job and this summer. I'm not going to let Ashley ruin it for me, not by surprising me with her presence, not by disappearing after.

Weekends are quiet for me, no classes -- teaching or posing -- and I have little interest in the networking parties and the evening dances that fill the nights, nor the trips to nearby small towns to coo over homemade quilts and local honey that fill the days.

The Ozarks are beautiful, and though I’m not much of a back-to-nature girl, this summer I’m working on a series of multimedia paintings that incorporate pieces of the natural world. There are nice, easy hiking trails all around the resort, and each weekend, I try a different one.

It’s a challenge to look stylish while hiking, but I make it work: old Chucks with high tops, originally red but covered with so much black ink the color shows through the drawings only in splashes; sky blue cotton pants that I drew trees on from the ankles all the way up my calves; and another leotard, short-sleeved this time, a white one I dyed like a sunset, orange where it disappears into my pants darkening up to black at my shoulders, flecked all over with silver paint to make stars. I wear a long feather earring in one ear and a silver star and moon in the other, and pull my hair back into a ponytail that falls halfway down my back. I glued silk leaves to little silver hair clips and I tuck them into different spots.

Janine, my sister, gave me a nice camera for my last birthday. I take a picture of myself in the mirror, then pack the camera into my bag, grab a couple bottles of water and a bunch of snacks, and take off. It’s late afternoon and the air is warm and muggy, but it will cool off as the sun sets.

The hike is easy, doesn’t require any special skill or anything. It takes me awhile because I keep stopping to take pictures of a cunning color combination in the flowers or try to capture the shape of light falling across a log in my sketchbook.

I have to stop and change film twice before I even reach my destination. It’s going to cost a fortune to get all of these pictures developed, but I’ll figure out how to pay for that later. I figured two rolls a week for three months; I’m already through most of that and we’re less than two weeks in.

The view from the outlook is worth the climb. The owners of the retreat built what basically looks like a balcony up here, built out over the edge of the mountain. It has a high rail with thick safety glass closing off the gaps, and it gives a sweeping view across the valley. The trees are a rich dark green, leaves lush, and there’s pretty much always fog right around sunrise or sunset.

I’ve only taken a handful of pictures of the way the sky changes as the sun disappears behind the hills in the distance when I hear the crunch of footsteps on the dirt trail. I don’t turn around at first, too focused on my work, but then I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise. Whoever it was didn’t keep hiking down the trail. They stopped, and they’re watching me.

Not me, the view, I try to reassure myself, but I read far too many mysteries and true crime books to believe that. I’m alone in what might as well be wilderness even though I’m less than an hour up the mountain from the retreat, and the climb down is faster if I’m willing to take that risk.

I straighten and hold myself still while I listen: wind, the rustle of branches, birds quiet in the distance.

Someone else breathing.

I whip around, careful not to knock over my tripod, and again find myself face to face with Ashley Wyeth. Well, sort of face to face. She’s not looking at me now even if she was watching me before. Instead she stares out over the view, eyes squinted against the remaining light. The sunset casts her pale skin golden.

She wears a blue floral skirt just long enough to touch her hiking boots, a loose pale green sleeveless blouse embroidered with abstract designs in blue and pink, and arms full of thin green and blue bangle bracelets. Her fingers are covered in silver rings. Her hair is loose, long enough that it falls nearly to her thighs, and I can’t see if she wears any earrings. Her face is bare of make-up, and she has a faint shine to her skin, like she sweated just enough to be attractive.

I think, inanely, about an old friend who was a ballet dancer. She told me once that her instructor said women don’t sweat, they glow. Ashley is glowing.

My cheeks burn.

“Claudia.” There’s a long pause after she says my name, but I don’t have any words to fill it. “I did not expect to see you up here.”

Even though I had similar thoughts the first time I hiked up here, that rubs me the wrong way. “I can hike,” I snap. “I ski. I’ve been camping. I’m surprised you could tear yourself away from your art long enough to get any fresh air.”

She nods, conceding the hit.

“My art is here,” she says, making a slow gesture at the world around us. I watch the way her fingers move and how the light catches off her rings. “As is yours.”

My shoulders relax. I don’t want to fight with her. “Reference photos,” I tell her and turn back to my camera.

She doesn’t leave. I try to ignore her and finish what I’m doing, but I can feel her back there, silent and judgmental. Well, maybe she’s not judging me, not this time, but I’m so used to it from her that I can’t shake the feeling.

After a few minutes, I give up. “What are you doing here?” I ask as I start to break down my equipment.

“Memorizing inspiration.”

I close my eyes for a second. I’d forgotten how literal she could be. “I mean here, at the resort.” I sneak a glance at her when I tuck my camera back into its bag. She is watching me this time, a frank appraisal that makes my skin feel too tight. I hurry back to take apart the tripod for easy carry.

“Finding inspiration.” I can hear her skirt swish as she moves. I force myself not to look at her again, not yet, not until I’m ready to hike back down the mountain. “One of my old instructors from Keyes suggested I come here. Her wife taught here a couple summers. I needed --” Ashley stops.

She’s silent long enough I finally do look at her. She’s not watching me now, is instead staring out over the valley. She frowns a little, chews on her lower lip. I rarely see her look so tentative.

“It’s a good place for that,” I tell her. She jerks her gaze over to me, and I offer her a weak smile. “For whatever you need.” It’s my turn to vaguely gesture at the trees and mountains and fading light. “For finding -- whatever.”

Ashley nods and some of her wistful expression fades.

“Will you hike down with me?” she asks.

I clutch at the pieces of my tripod, then shrug. We’re going the same way, after all. What can it hurt?

“Sure,” I tell her. She lights up so much at that one word I have a hard time ignoring it or the way something warm and hopeful flutters in my chest.

We’ve left it too long. Before we’re halfway down the trail, full dark falls. Ashley has a flashlight. I do not, and I kick myself for it when I catch her looking at me again. Judging me, I swear, though I can’t read her expression.

“Come here,” she says, and draws me over so she can loop her arm through mine. “It’s wide enough for us to walk together. We can share.”

She’s warm along my side, and I want to press into her even though I’m still sticky from the humidity. She doesn’t say anything else for a long time and neither do I. It’s a little awkward, walking so close together like this, but the trail is wide and mostly smooth. I listen to our breathing and the crunch of rocks under Ashley’s boots. My steps are quieter, but I feel the ground more, too.

Ashley stops, suddenly, just when the trail turns and lets us see the resort for the first time. The lights are all aglow, Christmas lights in the trees making it look like a fairytale.

“I missed you.” She speaks quickly, breathless. “I knew you were here, your name is in the paperwork for instructors, and I was going to stay away, give you space, but I saw you in the studio the first night, and I couldn’t. I tried, Claudia, I did, but I couldn’t.”

She’s shaking, and her eyes are very wide as she stares at me.

“I’m glad.” My voice is low, and she sways closer to me. “You surprised me, but I’m glad.”

Ashley watches me. Bites her lip again. I want to kiss that spot, and more. This is a terrible idea. It almost always is when it comes to me and Ashley. We’re too much alike when it comes to our art. She’s overwhelming, and she makes me want to be swept away.

It’s just one summer, I promise myself. One week. One day. One kiss.

I’m lying, I can already see our summer sketched out before us. Bright colors, soft curves, and then she’ll break my heart, or I’ll break hers. We’re one for one so far, I think. Tie breaker.

I step into her. Put my hands on her hips. Lean in, slow and deliberate. She stares at me, luminous in the faint moonlight filtering through the trees. Tilts her face up. She’s taller than me, but I’m on the uphill slope.

When I touch my mouth to hers, she lets out a soft sigh and her entire body shivers. I pull her closer, slipping my arms around her, working around her backpack. She touches my wrists, my arms, opens her mouth for me, touches her tongue to mine. There’s nothing hesitant about her kisses. There never has been.

“Can I draw you?” she asks when she pulls away. We’re both breathing hard. “Like they do?”

“No.” The answer comes quick, and she flinches. I’m holding her still, and I don’t let her step away. “You can draw me like you do. Or mold me from clay. Or paint me. Anything, Ashley.” My voice comes out breathier than I like, shakier. “Everything.”

She kisses me this time, hard and long, clutching at my face. Her bracelets scratch my cheeks, her hair is all around us. I’m drowning in her, again. Diving into her cool depths.

I hold Ashley close and, once again, let myself fall.


End file.
